Council Grants Totalling More Than £636k Awarded to Reading’s Voluntary Sector Last Year

GRANT payments totalling £636,449 were awarded to voluntary and community organisations across the town by Reading Borough Council last year.

Reading is home to a large and varied ‘third sector’ which the Council makes full use of through the regular award of grant payments. The grants enable local organisations to bring benefits to residents and communities which can sometimes be hard to reach.

The payments, awarded between April 2024 and March 2025, were sourced from a variety of both national and local funding programmes. They included the Better Care Fund, Household Support Fund, Small Grants Fund, Homes for Ukraine, Ukraine Integration Support Fund, Community Health Champion Project, Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) and Creative Lives Funding.

The overall grant figure of £636,449.27 does not include services the Council procures from voluntary organisations through contractual arrangements. The Council’s analysis showed that the total figure for grants and services procured from the voluntary sector was £8.7 million the previous year (2023/24).

A full list of grants awarded, the names of voluntary and community sector organisations which benefitted and the purpose of the funding, has been published on the Council’s website at: https://images.reading.gov.uk/2025/04/Transparency-code-VCS-Grants-database-2024-25-3.xlsx

Examples of projects funded by the grants include:

• Alana House-PACT received funding for the Domestic Abuse Pilot Project to support survivors of domestic abuse within A&E and other hospital settings, aiming to support survivors and reduce A&E attendance resulting from domestic abuse
• Food for Families was awarded a grant via Creative Lives to deliver a food partnership in Whitley
• Refugee Support Group was awarded grants to provide integration support for Ukrainian nationals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme
• Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality (Acre) received a grant for its Better Care Fund Community project to support a Men-2-Men project, which was designed to both improve access to health services, promote health and wellbeing among participants, and by extension their friends in the community
• The Cowshed was funded via the Household Support Fund to support families with infants through partnership and provision of family packs for mums and babies including car seats, buggies for a small number of eligible families
• Sadaka was funded via the Council's Small Grants Fund to address the rise in financial need in Reading and work towards reducing inequality by helping its most disadvantaged residents, who are disproportionately affected
• Whitley Community Development Association received Community Health Champion Project grants to run an activity programme and share information around physical and mental wellbeing.

Councillor Liz Terry, Reading Borough Council Leader, said:

“Reading is well known for its incredibly large and varied voluntary sector. Many of these small organisations are located out in our communities and without them the Council would have great difficulty reaching residents who, for a variety of reasons, do not always come forward for support.

“It can be difficult to fully appreciate the depth and breadth of activities and support on offer, which is why I am pleased the Council has published the full list of grant recipients over the last financial year. The list in itself is just a snapshot of the overall financial support provided to voluntary sector groups across Reading when you consider it does not include the significant value of services procured by the Council through contracts with the third sector.”

Councillor Ellie Emberson, Reading’s Lead for Corporate Services and Resources, said:

“The Council may be the front door for a variety of national funding streams, but it is Reading’s voluntary and community sector groups and organisations who are out on the ground delivering the benefits of these grants to residents. The difference made to individuals and local communities in need is enormous and the Council never takes the incredible work they do for granted.”

Reading Borough Council publishes a list of voluntary and community organisations who have benefitted from grants every year as part of its transparency code.